Talking Heads Drop Surprise Music Video Nearly 50 Years After Hit Song’s Release
The Talking Heads celebrated their 50th anniversary by giving a gift to fans. The legendary rock band released the first official music video for their classic hit “Psycho Killer” in June 2025. The song is from their debut album, Talking Heads: 77.
The surprise “Psycho Killer" music video was in honor of the 50th anniversary of the band’s first show at CBGB, where they opened for the Ramones in 1975, per Stereogum. Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan stars as a distressed office worker in the video clip directed by Mike Mills. No member of Talking Heads appears in the video, but the now disbanded group did issue a statement.
“This video makes the song better – We LOVE what this video is NOT – it’s not literal, creepy, bloody, physically violent or obvious,” the band said, per Pitchfork.
Talking Heads formed in New York City in 1975, featuring guitarist Jerry Harrison, bassist Tina Weymouth, drummer Chris Frantz, and lead singer David Byrne.
“Psycho Killer" was the first song Byrne ever wrote for the band, and it became the breakthrough single on Talking Heads: 77. Speaking with NPR in 2023, the singer said the future hit was “an experiment” to see if he could write a song.
“I thought I would try and write something that was maybe a cross between Alice Cooper and Randy Newman,” Byrne explained. “I thought I'd have the kind of dramatic subject that Alice Cooper might use, but then look at kind of an interior monologue, the way Randy Newman might do it. And so, I thought, let's see if we can get inside this guy's head. So we're not going to talk about the violence or anything like that, but we'll just get inside this guy's kind of muddled-up, slightly twisted thoughts.”
“Psycho Killer" was originally released when the Son of Sam murders in New York were making headlines in the summer of 1977. Byrne denied that the killings were the inspiration behind his band’s signature hit, according to Far Out magazine.
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